


Reputation

by thermodynamic (euphoriaspill)



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Absent Parents, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Brothers, Drug Dealing, Dysfunctional Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gangs, Gen, Guns, Infidelity, Marijuana, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-04-05 14:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14046312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoriaspill/pseuds/thermodynamic
Summary: When Curly discovers an old secret, he's left questioning everything he once knew about himself.





	1. Revelation

"This is pretty pathetic, Curls. Just wanted to let you know that."

I lifted my head up from my pillow to see Tim rummaging through his pile of Playboys— probably counting them to make sure I'd kept my sticky fingers off. "Go to hell."

Three, two, one, and the sharp slap I'd expected was delivered upside my thick skull. "It's my room too, I ain't goin' nowhere." He sat down on the edge of his mattress, the springs creaking under his weight. "Come on, she's a disaster. She'll say anythin' once she's mixed that mother's little helper with a nice tall glass of whiskey."

"You know it's true," I insisted, hating the way my voice wobbled. "I don't look nothin' like— Carlos."

Blue eyes, like Ma's, hair a shade lighter than— not Dad, anymore. Carlos. Carlos Ramirez, who was, beyond a shadow of a doubt,  _not_  the baby daddy.

"All right, I tried to bullshit you, but you're makin' it a lot harder than it has to be." If he was flipping through Linda Gamble's 'best tits of 1961' during my crisis, I was going to kill him. "So Mary Magdalene had me an' Angela with a Mexican ex-con, and she had you with  _another_  Mexican ex-con. Either way, we ain't got no daddy, so what's the big deal?"

"Don't call her that."

"Why not?" he demanded. "She's a whore, ain't she? Remember all them stepfathers the cat dragged in?" He let out a harsh chuckle, belying that casual act he'd put on. It was a big deal, it was a big fucking deal, and he couldn't pretend otherwise. "Goddamn, she didn't even blink, namin' you Carlos. She's one _calculating_  whore, that's for sure. And all you ever do is defend her like she gives a shit about you."

"Someone's gotta love me best," I said, with more raw honesty than I'd intended. "You was always  _your_ daddy's favorite. Guess that makes sense now."

_Quit that snivelin' before I really give you something to cry about. Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one gets full the fastest. Why can't you be more like your brother, you little—_

" _Maricón_." Tim strode over to the window, throwing it open and lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. "Dad made me run around with the product when I was in grade school, and you think I got real lucky there?" He flicked it after a few feeble drags, dropping embers onto the yellow grass beneath him. "Grow the fuck up."

"You better not let Luis an' Alberto hear you talkin' like that," I drawled. "Then we'll see who's the  _maricón_."

Tim and I had always bickered, but there was a dangerous edge to our fights since I'd gotten jumped in and joined the gang for real, not just tagged along on his or the tío's jobs. He was quicker with a sharp word or a clip around the ear than ever, and on my end, I could never let a snide remark go without bringing my fists up. Maybe it was just us growing older; maybe it was that our cramped, falling-apart room felt as hot as a kiln the summer of '64, threatening to shatter the pots inside.

"Man," he shot back with a low whistle, "if those two found out their lil' Carlos ain't a Ramirez, I'm pretty sure they'd both drop dead on the spot. Life just wouldn't be worth livin' no more."

"You can't tell them." I sat up straight, clutching the comforter in both of my fists, panic flooding my mind and knocking all the smartmouth out. "Fuck, you can't—"

"Don't worry, you can stay  _their_  favorite, too." He gave me a mocking smile, barely turning a sliver of his face away from the window. I hated him in that moment. "You really think they'd believe it? Denial's one hell of a drug."

"Jackass," I muttered as my heartbeat slowed down, not too far under my breath— in fact, not at all under my breath. "You're just jealous, you know, you always been jealous.  _No puedes hablar español digno de mierda, los avergüenzas cada vez que abras la boca..."_

(Insulting his Spanish was the number one way to piss Tim off. He talked okay, he knew enough cuss words to make Father Lopez at church blush and could hold a conversation, but Luis and Alberto still called him the family gringo compared to me. I couldn't explain it; it was like my thoughts flowed faster, spilling from my mouth before I could leash them. Like my uncles and I came from the same breed, and Tim was on the other side of a pane of glass, failing to bust his way through with a sledgehammer.)

He smiled wider, warping the livid scar on his left cheek. "They're only all nice an' sweet with you 'cause you're never gonna do nothin' but take my orders."

I knew what he was trying to do— goad me into punching him, so we could get into an honest-to-God brawl about all our daddy issues. Move past it like we usually did, with a grim fist-bump and Saturday night football. But the acid simmering in my veins had different ideas.

"You ain't even my real brother, so why don't you just fuck off?"

My scalp prickled after I hurled the words like javelins, blood sloshing around in my ears; somehow I regretted it more than anything and still not enough to take it back. "Fine," Tim said, his face blank as he tossed the magazines under his bed. "If that's how you wanna play. But next time Ed comes home drunk and lookin' for a fight, don't expect me to jump in front of his fist."

He slammed the door hard enough to make my Beach Boys poster fall off the wall. I didn't have the energy to get up and fix it.

* * *

"Tim told me what you said." Angela plopped down on my bed like she owned it, and then socked me in the arm— I'd take the secret to my (probably early) grave, but for a little girl, she could pack one hell of a punch. "I'd better still be your sister, asshole."

"Like I could get rid of you." I managed to sit up all the way, rubbing at the spots on my skin where the sheets had made indents. "I didn't mean it. Fuck. I don't mean shit when I get all hot."

"He just broke three plates yellin' at Ma again," she said— not that he ever needed much of an excuse to do that. "Guess you really hurt his feelings. I didn't know he even  _had_  feelings."

"Yeah, well, maybe if he wasn't such a goddamn prick all the time—" I started, but then didn't have the heart to continue. "I can't believe Ma didn't tell me. Not even after... your dad died."

I wasn't as dumb as Tim thought I was— or as dumb as most people thought, despite my piss-poor grades. I knew how the street worked, knew in my subconscious mind that Carlos favored his real kids over me for a reason. Maybe even figured out that every recognizable feature on my face came from my ma. But all of us had kept up the same pantomime for years, until the right cocktail made Ma finally declare the truth.

Was this why I was her favorite? The only reason?

"He might be dead by now," she said with a shrug. "Or on lock."

"She says he's alive." I rolled over onto my back, staring up at the cottage cheese lumps on the ceiling. We'd spent a lot of time roving from motel to motel after we got evicted, when I was a kid, and this new house wasn't much nicer. "Last she checked, anyway. He's got a place on the North Side."

AKA Little Juárez, where Luis and Alberto lived, along with a good three-quarters of the Chicanos in Tulsa. Ma shrieked and slammed pots around in the sink whenever Tim and I went to visit, but I'd learned every graffiti-covered wall and bodega, had always assumed I'd live there too when I was grown. He wouldn't be hard for me to find.

"So?" she demanded, pressing her crimson-painted toes into my side. "What do you think you're gonna do, dumbass, look him up in the phone book and just ring his doorbell?"

"I dunno. Maybe. Maybe he'll want to know he's had a fucking  _son_  all these years."

"More like he'll wonder if Ma's tryna get cash outta him," she said. Angela always had a way of slicing through anyone's dreams. "Come on, Curls, this ain't gonna end well."

When I didn't immediately reply, she kept going. "If he's got a new wife and kids, he'll slam the door in your face so fast, your nose'll break on it."

"Christ, I get it, you can shut up already," I said, giving her a shove. "I ain't plannin' on hirin' a U-Haul and movin' out, it's just— you don't understand."

She never would understand, being a girl and all, though I had enough sense not to tell her that part. Carlos looked just like Tim, when he was younger— Ma had a black and white photo of him in the back of her underwear drawer, all sharp jaw and stern mouth and big dark eyes. His daddy was a dealer, his uncles were dealers, and that was what he'd grow up to be, but I didn't know what I'd do without Carlos Ramirez's reputation to flash like a knife. Tim's words had hit where it hurt— I wasn't  _shit_ anymore, unless—

Hector Diaz, she'd said, and I repeated the name in my head until the syllables no longer held any meaning. Hector Diaz. Hector Diaz. My  _father,_ the possibilities spreading out before me like the entire solar system, endless and terrifying.

* * *

Tim had long since stormed out, looking for booze or women or a fight to douse the fire of his temper. Angela never stayed at home anymore if she could help it. Ed was back, a tornado of cusses and projectiles, but I didn't feel like defending Ma's honor much today. Tilting more of a stolen whiskey bottle down my throat, I drifted into an uneasy doze, one particular memory pushing itself to the forefront of my mind.

_"You ever think Daddy had more kids?" Angela asked. "Other than us?"_

_Typical breakfast conversation at the Shepard house— that is, when Ma and Ed were still out at Charlie's Bar, getting sloshed. A typical breakfast conversation with those two around involved a lot more thrown plates._

_"Doubt it," Tim said through a sip of orange juice. We were pressed together on the couch, our cereal bowls on our laps in a rare moment of family bonding— Ma didn't let us watch any TV that wasn't religious, and we meant to take advantage of the opportunity, The Twilight Zone blaring. "Luis and Alberto would be all over them, wouldn't they? Would've introduced us by now."_

_"Luis ain't even all over his own kids," I said, shuddering. I still remembered the time Cami showed up at our place, high on angel dust with a baby on her hip, threatening to claw our faces off if we didn't get him to pay his fucking child support._

_"I mean, maybe we've got a dozen siblings runnin' around town, for all we know," Angela jumped on my point. "Ain't like Mama an' Daddy were ever married. Lots of guys get with more than one broad."_

_"They wouldn't be our siblings, Angel, c'mon," Tim said, flinging an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him. "Your daddy's kids from another baby mama don't count as no damn siblings."_

_"But what if we have a sister?" She smirked. "Can we trade Curly for her? He won't sit still an' let me practice doin' eyeliner on him no more."_

_I flipped her the bird. "Can we trade her for another brother?" (A kid brother, just to be clear, one I could boss around a little. Last thing I needed was a second Tim telling me what to do.)_

_"Shut up," Tim said easily, rolling his eyes so far back all I could see were the whites, "I'm not tradin' either of you. Half-siblings ain't the same as real ones, that's just the plain truth."_

I'd wrapped myself up in his words like a blanket that day, clinging to the security they provided. Tim wasn't much of one to go 'I love you' and all that mushy shit, but I knew what he'd been too self-conscious to say out loud.

Now I wasn't so sure of anything.


	2. Rejection

Of course, tracking down my biological father was no easy task. It took months of reconnaissance, dead ends, exploring every street in the area—

Ha. No. Not with uncles like mine.

"When can I have my own heater?" I threw my leg over the edge of the stained couch— knocking two baggies of grass off the arm in the process. They were growing in the bathroom, trying to cut down on overhead costs; the whole place reeked of skunk. "Tim's got one."

"Tim's seventeen, you ain't even in high school yet," Luis said, before Alberto could jump in with a story about how he'd been packing heat since he left kindergarten. "What d'you wanna be strapped for, anyway? Someone givin' you that much static?"

Now or never. "Y'all know this guy Hector Diaz? Where he lives?"

Alberto's spine stiffened like he'd just been given an electric shock, his voice harsh when he spoke next— and believe me, that's not the kind of reaction you want to see from a guy holding a Glock, even a disassembled one he was cleaning with an oilcloth. "The hell you askin' for?"

Tim always complained I never thought shit through (usually with a quick one upside my head), but at least I had thinking on the fly down pat. " _Puto_  stiffed me ten bucks for some grass I sold him on credit, he still ain't payin' up. Why, what's the big deal?"

"Nothin'," Luis cut in with a sharp look at Alberto, "you don't need to listen to no dirty shit like that."

"Your ma really used to get around, back in the day," Alberto snorted anyway, because he never listened to what he was told. "Couple folks 'round the hood been sayin' that ol' Hector's your daddy, is all."

"Is it... true?"

"No," Luis said before I could even finish the sentence. "No, 'course not, don't be stupid. You got Carlos's... ears. Big ones."

"People come up with all sorts of dumbass rumors," Alberto said just as fast, "you know, they'll say anythin' to make a brother look bad after he's croaked. You're Ramirez through and through."

They really couldn't have made it more obvious if they'd drawn horns on their picture of Carlos.

"He lives on 10th," Luis said after we'd all been staring at each other and scratching the back of our heads for a few seconds. "Gray house with the bathtub on the front lawn and the plastic flamingos. If you want someone strapped with you, we'll come—"

"Nah, it's cool," I said, the upholstery clinging to my sweaty palms. "He's a pussy. Probably gonna be fine with just a switch."

"We're your family,  _compa_ , ain't no big thing," Alberto said in a voice that could've coaxed a kitten out of a tree. I didn't know those kinds of noises could even leave his windpipe. "We'll go show him who's boss."

"I'll be okay." I stuck my knuckle into my mouth and bit down hard. "I think this is just... somethin' I gotta do for myself, you dig?"

They sent me packing with a new switchblade tucked into my pocket and a couple Quaaludes "to sell at school," Alberto told me with a nudge to the ribs. "I'll talk to Luis," he then whispered in my ear, "see if we can get you a piece. You're part of the gang now, ain't you? Seems to me you're man enough for one."

I still felt like a kid being reassured that of  _course_  Santa was real.

* * *

My father had a beer belly bulging out of his wifebeater, a receding hairline I prayed I hadn't inherited, and a scowl spread across his drawn face; I'd hoped for more of a Marlon Brando in Streetcar type. But despite the way he'd gone to seed, I could see myself in him, sensed a magnetic connection between us that I'd never felt with the man I'd been named after. I knew him; I'd known him my whole life, without ever meeting him.

... Or maybe I was just taking myself for a ride. He sure didn't seem to be feeling much of anything besides confusion.

"Can I help you, kid?" he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "You lost?"

"... Hey," I said feebly, all of my planned introductions flying straight out my head. "I'm... um... Curly— Carlos Shepard. Your son."

I'd rehearsed a million different reactions, but I still wasn't prepared for him to just slam the door— how could I have been? "Hey,  _puto_ , open up," I yelled, pounding on it like I wanted to break it down with my fists. "I ain't playin' with you. Open the fucking door, or I'm gonna tell my tíos to put Vaseline on your tires."

When I saw his face again, I learned the meaning of 'I brought you into this world, and I can take you out', all right, because he looked like he wanted to weigh me down with bricks and throw my body in the river. "You got five fuckin' seconds to split, or I ain't gonna be held responsible—"

"Hector? Who is it?"

I spotted the silhouette of a woman in the kitchen— our sort, Chicana. She looked kind of like one of Alberto's exes, come to think of it, but she'd sure been prettier before she had a kid clinging to her ankles and another on her skirt.

"Nothin', babe," he shouted back. "Just one of them Jehovah's Witnesses. Lemme make sure he knows we're Catholic."

He slammed the door so hard I wanted earmuffs. "You ever think about, I dunno, makin' a phone call before showin' up at someone's place and sayin' he's your daddy?"

I wasn't paying much attention to his words, instead studying his features and trying to place what I'd seen in the mirror. I had his nose, broader than Carlos's, his same big forehead— and goddamn, if I kept growing at his rate, soon enough I'd be taller than Tim. Wouldn't that be a trip?

"Lights look like they're on, anybody home?" Hector—  _Dad?_ — said, giving me a rap on the head with his knuckles. "What do you want from me, huh? Money? Bank's closed, I got my boys to feed."

"You know, maybe I'm an idiot, but I was expecting a few more hugs from this little reunion," I said, swiping his arm away from my head. "Since  _I'm_  your son an' all, too."

"My wife lives here," he snarled. "My real kids live here. I don't need them gettin' mixed up in your kind of shit. Who the hell told you 'bout this?"

"Man, we just met, and you're actin' like I asked you to bail me outta the cooler—"

"I've met your uncles, unfortunately— I know you're a gangbanger, so don't even try that choir boy act on me." He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to stare me down like he was a wildebeest in the savannah or something. "Mary let it slip? She never did get when to keep that mouth shut."

"Don't talk shit 'bout my mama." Sometimes I felt like those words should be tattooed on my tongue, I had to say them so often. "At least she stuck around to raise me,  _deadbeat_. You even get a good look at me before you took off?"

"What happened to that guy— Carlos— the one who sold smack?" He scuffed the toe of his boot around in the dirt. "Your ma was with him, I remember that."

"He's dead." The word sat like a piece of rotten fruit in my mouth. "For five years now."

_He knew what I was. Whose I was._

"I figured," he snorted, and I wanted to deck him. Tim's dad had never really gotten used to me, but some decent memories flashed through my mind when I heard that snort— goddamn, even  _Ed_  was warmer than this guy, and he'd taught me how to play 'dodge the whiskey bottle' before I turned ten. "Listen, kid, I feel bad about this, I do. But your mama... it was just a one night kind of thing, you know what I'm sayin'? I'm out of your life, I don't need any of it comin' back to bite me in the ass."

"Yeah, yeah, I know what you're sayin'." Tim would've maintained his customary icy mask the whole time he talked to him, come up with some brutal remarks about his other kids' IQ's, the attractiveness of his wife, and what a pussy he was in general. But, well, as much as I tried to act like a miniature version of him—

... If I started crying, I was gonna burn my tear ducts out with a cigarette. "So what, it's goodbye forever now? Just like that?"

"I'm gonna do you a favor," he said, putting his hands on my shoulders, "one I didn't do your mama. I want you to turn your ass around and go home. Right now. And don't come back here again— it'll be easier on both of us."

I kicked five of his stupid flamingos over after he slammed the door for the third time, then burned one with my lighter for good measure, watching the pink plastic warp into something unrecognizable and ugly. It didn't make me feel any better.

(My uncles would've set his whole house on fire— but they weren't even my uncles, not really. I walked away.)

* * *

I didn't go home, couldn't bring myself to face Tim's mockery and Angela's sympathetic stares. I aimlessly wandered far from my own turf, sipping a can of beer I'd nicked from a convenience store, until I found Ponyboy Curtis sitting down on the hot curb.

He had this big book in his lap, To Kill a Mockingbird, and he was actually  _reading_  it. Man, last time I'd managed to get through a book, they were tryna teach the retard seventh grade class in reform school Old Yeller. (I kind of liked the part where shit heated up and the dog got shot, but we never finished it, because that was when George Andrews decided to shank Ken Davis for cutting him in the showers— after that, they made us do a whole lesson from the Bible about the meek inheriting the earth.) "Hey, Curtis, don't you know what summer break means?" I called out, just to razz him and lighten my own mood. "Thought you was goin' down to the rodeo today."

"Got uninvited," he said, barely raising his head up from his lap.

"Darry tell you to get lost?" I asked sympathetically. My big brother told me to go kick rocks all the time too, and I wasn't even some twelve-year-old kid anymore.

... My big brother. The phrase made my insides twist like I'd eaten six chili cheese dogs in one go, because of the words I'd thrown at him, that he wasn't even my real brother. Instead of replaying our (many) arguments, I remembered the time some assholes from the hood jumped me for being a spic and having a whore for a mom— I'd only been nine or ten, too young to put up a good fight. Tim had thrown rocks at them Old Testament-style and cussed them out and carried me home on his back, all three blocks.

Hurt like hell that he probably wouldn't do the same thing again.

"Nah, Soda," he said, his mouth an unhappy slash. "I hate that Steve Randle. He always calls me a tagalong and a kid, and Mom wouldn't make them take me."

I snorted, feeling a nasty urge rise up in me. "You told your mama to make your brother take you to the rodeo?"

Instead of bristling, he just gave me a confused look. "Your mama doesn't get Tim to include you in stuff?"

"Shoot, Ponykid, she'd die happy if Tim never included me in anything, ever again." I spit on the ground, smirking at the way he wrinkled his nose. "You want some beer?"

"No way, I ain't allowed to drink," he said, his freckles dark on his pale face, and I wondered for the millionth time why I hung out with him. Maybe because no matter what I did, even something as dumb as knocking one back, he looked at me like I was Clint Eastwood.

"Hey,  _Shepard_ , there you are."

"Hey, Pedro," I said as he strolled by, clutching a bottle in a brown paper bag; he greased his long hair so much he practically left a slime trail wherever he went. He'd tried to flush my head down the toilet first day of junior high, I'd slammed him into a gym locker, and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "What's happenin'?"

"Remember you told me if I got laid before school started, you'd climb a telephone pole?" He flashed me a shit-eating grin and pulled a pair of lacy pink panties out of his back pocket. "Kiss my ass. Hope your shoes have good grip."

"Bullshit, you sure you didn't take those from your sister's laundry hamper?"

"Maybe they're  _your_  sister's—" he started, but cut himself off when I brought my raised fist into his line of sight. "You lost the bet, now it's time to pay up, sucker." Christ, I hated that dumb asshole, when he wasn't my best friend— kind of like how Tim felt about Dally Winston, that towhead in Darry Curtis's gang. "Get up there an' wave."

"You're trippin'." I peered up at the pole, the distance between the concrete and the top, the ratty sneakers tied to the wires by dirty, disintegrating laces. "C'mon,  _compa_ , you can't be serious. Remind me to never play poker with you."

"You a pussy, Shepard?"

I grabbed the bottle from his hands and took a long swig, coke mixed with rum, let the heat spread throughout my chest. Then I threw it at him; he just barely dodged, and it shattered against the pavement a foot away, shards of glass and brown-gold liquid glinting in the sun. "Call me that again, and I ain't gonna miss."

"You crazy motherfucker," he said, but he was still smiling; he thought I'd just been kidding around. "So you fixin' to climb it or not?"

"Curly, don't do it." Ponyboy took hold of my arm, pulling at the sleeve of my holey t-shirt. "If you fall, you're gonna kill yourself."

I felt every angry, self-destructive urge in my body swell up as I looked at the pole again, at the promise of the sky above me. I didn't need Hector, didn't need Tim, didn't need anyone. I could pay my own debts, make my own name.

"Hold my beer," I told him.

* * *

_"I'm real proud of you, hermano," Tim said with a rare grin, slapping me on the back— where he'd nailed me with a baseball bat not half an hour ago. "You took that like a man. And you was worried you might wuss out, too."_

_"So does that mean... I'm in?" I managed to get out, every inch of my body pulsating with a dull ache as I held an icepack up to my face. When I poked around my mouth with my tongue, I could feel one of my teeth had come loose._

_It was a fair question; I was already affiliated, but fourteen was pretty damn young to get jumped in, Tim's brother or not. Tim followed Luis and Alberto's strategy of no favoritism— to be in the crew, I had to earn my place. And I wanted to prove I was worthy, prove I was as tough as my uncles, as tough as Tim, more than anything._

_"Damn straight."_

My eyes snapped open, and the memory of how I'd ended up flat on the ground hit me like a hammer to the skull. I'd heard a sickening crack on the moment of impact, then static flooded my vision as the pain radiated down my arm— worse than the times Ed had whipped me, or when I'd lost a knife fight at the Dingo and gotten sliced across the torso, or even my jump-in. I didn't know anything in the world could hurt so much.

"Curly, shit," Ponyboy said, sounding like he was going to throw up— funny, he wasn't the one who'd just fallen from a fucking telephone pole. Then I saw the shine of white like snow sticking out of my arm, the gravel embedded in the bloody, raw mess that had once been my elbow, and I had to clamp my lips together to keep from vomiting all over the pavement myself. "Shit, Curly,  _shit_ —"

I used the last breath in my lungs; my voice came out as an uneven rasp. "Get Tim."


End file.
